


it was the fourth of july

by nokomisfics



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fourth of July fic, M/M, also written at 4AM, as you can see i am Very Bad at summaries, not even american but i felt like it, while kate simultaneously beta'd bc she's awesome that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:29:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4990246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nokomisfics/pseuds/nokomisfics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>phil leaves for university and dan remains behind. then phil comes back. also: fireworks</p>
            </blockquote>





	it was the fourth of july

**Author's Note:**

> this is for kate :'D

_i’ll be as honest as you let me / i miss your early morning company_

* * *

 

There is a mound of something on Dan’s bed. A mound suspiciously human-shaped. Or, rather, the shape of a human curled in on himself, no doubt sweltering under three thick blankets that have no business being out in the middle of the summer. The suspicious human-shaped mound snores softly, quiet little noises that sound out of place in the brightly lit room, and then the suspicious human-shaped mound gives a very loud, very offensive groan when Amy Howell appears in the doorway and says, “ _Dan_.”

Turns out there is a human under the mound, and Dan sticks out a boney hand to wave his mum away. He makes a sound that he hopes comes across as “I’m asleep”, “leave me alone”, and “why is it so  _hot_  in here” simultaneously. Amy Howell frowns down at her sixteen-year-old, unimpressed.

“ _Dan_ ,” she says, impossibly louder this time. “There is a someone waiting for you outside. Wake up.”

Dan repeats his groan, aiming to match his mother in both volume and persistence. But Amy Howell has been around Dan long enough to know how to get shit done. So she strides across the room towards Dan’s bed, rips the blankets off of his (half-dressed) body and wrinkles her nose as the smell of sweat and summer seeping into her nostrils. Then she stoops down and whispers into Dan’s ear, “Phil is here.”

The rate at which Dan sits straight up is almost comical.

“I’ll be in my room if you boys need me,” she says casually, exiting the room. Behind her, Dan scratches at his eyes and tries in vain to tell his heart to  _calm the fuck down_ , because it’s doing a little tap-dance in his chest that isn’t letting him form coherent thought at all. Then his heart stops thumping and he’s afraid he’s dead, because he can feel nothing around him but the words  _phil, phil, phil_  pressing into his skin and poking at his brain.

He stumbles out of bed, picks up and throws on the nearest shirt and has to physically stop himself from pausing to look into the mirror on his way out of the room. By the time he makes it down the stairs, his t-shirt is stuck to his chest with a thin line of sweat and his face feels cold and sticky.  _Fuck_  the summer, and  _fuck_  the middle-of-the-day five hour nap he’s just taken and also, while he’s at it,  _fuck_  Phil.

He still feels asleep, and therefore not all there, so when he heads into the living room it almost makes sense that it is void of a boy with a fringe over his right eye and a tongue poking out from between his teeth as he grins. Then there’s a loud honk from outside, and Dan sleepily walks to the front door and pulls it open.

There’s an old red mustang convertible in his driveway, which a Phil sitting in the driver’s seat. When Phil waves at him, Dan’s heart does an impressive plummet.

“N-no,” he stutters out, which is stupid because Phil can’t hear him. He watches Phil wave him over one more time, and Dan would shake his head if he could, if he weren’t too busy drinking in Phil and his car and his existence here, in Dan’s driveway, one  _entire fucking month_  since Dan last heard from him.

Phil looks fine, if not a little bit thinner and a little more tired. He looks paler than before (and Dan hadn’t thought that possible but hey, Phil’s back here, isn’t he?) and there’s a thing on his neck that looks like - but it can’t be - but it is?

Phil’s gone and gotten his fucking neck tattooed.

This, of all things, makes Dan walk down the driveway - barefoot no less - and stand a foot away from the car, his arms wrapped around his chest even though it isn’t even remotely chilly. “Hi,” he says, simply. And then - “What happened to your fucking neck?”

Phil flinches, like he always does when Dan swears around him, which was funny when Phil would fuck Dan because the latter could absolutely not stop swearing then and Phil’s face would be screwed up - half appalled at his language and mostly taken over by pleasure - and  _fuck_. Dan needs to get a reign on himself.

“Nothing happened to my neck,” says Phil then. “Get in the car.” His eyes are wide like he’s drinking in Dan, too, and Dan doesn’t know what he feels about that. He’s trying very hard not to think about how this is the first time he’s heard Phil say anything in so,  _so_  long.

“No,” says Dan, and before he can stop himself he’s taking a step away from Phil. Immediately his blood runs cold, like something’s happened that shouldn’t have happened; ever since Dan met Phil that day on the street, when Phil had run into him with his skateboard and spilled Dan’s coffee over his good jumper, and then refused to let Dan walk away without buying him another coffee - ever since Dan had sat down opposite Phil in that one Starbucks booth and heard him open his mouth to the speak for the first time, Dan had been drawn into Phil, irreversibly, unapologetically.

But there’s a gap between them now, a valley too big to be crossed.

Or, at least, that’s what it feels like.

“Get in the car, Dan,” says Phil one more time, and Dan doesn’t shake his head this time. But he doesn’t move, either.

“What are you doing here?” he asks instead, his voice low and quiet.

“I don’t know,” Phil responds. He shrugs a little hopelessly, a small tentative grin on his lips. “It’s nice to see you. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” The words are out of Dan before he can stop them, but they don’t sound the way Phil’s words did. They sound hollow and sad, like Dan misses a Phil who isn’t back yet, not a Phil who’s sitting in an old red mustang with a tattoo on his neck. “But,” he begins, and then looks away, down at his feet. “Why didn’t you - “

“I’m sorry,” Phil cuts in. “Look, Dan, I’m - I don’t know. I was stupid, okay? Just. Just come on a ride with me. I’ll explain, or something.  _Please_.” The desperation in Phil’s voice makes Dan look up at him, and he’s about to shake his head no because Dan has grown, and he knows things now. Or, at least, he’s supposed to. Then Phil says something else that makes Dan freeze, and then melt, like nothing has changed, who was he trying to kid. “You’re wearing my shirt,” Phil adds softly, and only when Dan looks down does he realise Phil’s right.

It’s an old shirt of Phil’s, threadbare and well-worn, a simple white one with a doodle of spongebob on the front with the words  _bikini bottom squad_  over it, and Dan has been - without even realising it - wearing it often, almost always.

He feels everything inside him crumble as he reaches out to pull open the passenger seat of Phil’s car and slide in. Keeping his eyes off of Phil grinning face, his marked neck, he clicks the door shut and pulls the seat belt across his chest. Without any preamble Phil begins to reverse out of the driveway, and then he asks, “Will Amy be okay if she sees you’re gone?”

Dan  _shouldn’t_  be feeling warmed by the fact that Phil knows his mother’s goddamn name. “She’ll be fine if she knows I’m with you,” answers Dan quietly. He still refuses to look at Phil, choosing to look out of the window as Phil cruises out of his street, turning left at the end and heading further away from the city.

“I came back last week,” Phil says into the silence after a minute or two of driving. He sounds apprehensive, like he isn’t sure if he should be speaking or not. Good, Dan thinks stubbornly. “Waited a whole week to see you,” Phil adds, and something in Dan’s chest tugs. “Wasn’t sure if you’d want to. To.” Phil breaks off and from the corner of his eye Dan can see him turn his head to look at Dan. “Wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me,” Phil ends quietly.

Dan’s throat closes up at that, and he can’t help but think about how ridiculous this is. Because back in May, without the snogging and the secretive sex and the  _looks_  Phil would give him, early in the morning over breakfast, before all of that they had been friends. Real, proper friends. And Dan remembers how right it felt to be next to Phil, even if they were only lying on Dan’s couch eating ice cream out of the tub and talking about their favourite Pokemons.

“Of course I’d want to see you, Phil,” Dan admits finally, after the silence has dragged on long enough. He looks at Phil now and offers him a small grin, because he wants Phil back. Any version of him.  _All_  versions of him.

“I’ve missed you,” says Phil again, and this time Dan just nods, not quite trusting his voice to not crack if he attempts to say it back. It’s obvious though, it’s so fucking obvious to anyone with two eyes that Dan has missed the fuck out of Phil, and that’s really all Phil needs to know.

“Where are we going, then?” Dan asks when they’ve driven far enough from the suburbs that the lights of the houses have faded behind them. Here, the road feels darker and less familiar.

Phil clears his throat, a tell that he feels nervous, and Dan can’t help but be hopelessly endeared. “D’you remember that hill I showed you once?” he asks, then continues before Dan has time to recall. “I made us a little picnic and then you - “ A cough. “Went down on me? Did that thing with your tongue that was really - really good.”

Dan’s flushed from head to toe, his lips being pulled into a helpless grin. “I remember,” he says, because that had been one of those days when Dan had known - for sure and without a doubt - that Phil wasn’t just a summer thing. He couldn’t be. He’d wanted Phil around forever.

“Yeah, so.” Phil clears his throat, and when he speaks again Dan can sense the smile in his voice.”I thought we’d go up there, because it’s almost midnight and. You know.”

The fireworks. Dan knows, because he’d mentioned it once, how he believed that fireworks needed to be appreciated, and in order to appreciate something it needed to be watched from a good spot, and at the right time. He’d been scared that he sounded horribly pretentious - that was him most of the time around Phil. He’d been the small, blustering, just-turned sixteen kid, and Phil had been twenty, in control,  _smart_. Dan had always been scared that when he spoke, Phil wasn’t really listening, that all Phil wanted from him was a quick fuck and a good cuddle.

“You remembered,” Dan adds, aware of how young it makes him sound, how vulnerable.

“Of course,” says Phil shortly. The  _duh_  is pronounced, and a warm feeling floods Dan’s chest. He has to bite down on his bottom lip to stop himself from giggling like a high school kid (which, technically, he still is).

The rest of the ride passes in silence, leaving Dan to think about the events of the evening, and that he’s really still pretty pissed at Phil. Maybe not now, maybe not in this moment, but he feels like he owes it to the Dan back in May. The Dan who had stood at the end of his street waving at Phil as he drove away to university, the Dan who’d texted Phil the moment he got home, something stupid like  _i miss u already_  and  _u need to tell me all about ur new life !_  He owes it to the hopelessness he felt when Phil had ignored him, had sent him a shitty text at the end of the week saying  _sorry, so busy, doing well, hope ur good too!_

Dan’s tirade of texts in response to that one had gone unanswered, and slowly Dan had stopped trying. Even now, as Phil parks at the foot of the hill and climbs out of the car - his long limbs doing that fascinating thing where they’re both clumsy and agile at the same time - Dan is filled with the irrational fear like Phil’s about to leave, disappear without a trace and so much as a backward glance.

“You okay?” Phil asks, and his voice carries over the dry air of the night. Dan just nods, climbing out of the car and shutting the door behind him. “Let’s go,” Phil tells him, smiling dorkily at Dan from the other side of the car. They begin to walk up the hill together, and at one point Phil makes his hand purposely bumps against Dan’s, and then his fingers steal into Dan’s palm and fill the gaps behind his fingers, and Dan’s heart thumps dully in his chest. Really, this can’t be that healthy at all.

At the top of the hill, there isn’t much but a few shrubs and a small clearing between them where they sit cross-legged, shoulder to shoulder. Dan’s out of breath and Phil laughs at him, and all that does is make Dan wonder if Phil’s being working out. Then he’s filled with the desire to pull up Phil’s stupid familiar plaid shirt and check if his stomach’s become toned, so Dan sits on his hands because he needs to get a fucking  _grip_  on himself.

“How have you been?” Phil asks him.

“Good.” The word tastes bland on Dan’s tongue, so he goes to add: “Good as I’ll ever be in the summer.” He punctuates it with a laugh, but the awkwardness is thick and palpable in the air between them.

“And how is - “

“Phil,” Dan cuts in. Almost immediately, he bites his tongue. But Phil’s already looking at him with his stupid wide eyes and Dan knows that there isn’t any going back now. Cliche as it sounds, he wants some answers, except he doesn’t know where to start. “Tell me about the tattoo,” he decides on.

“Oh.” Phil grins at him, a notorious curve of his lips that is new but goddamn attractive. “I got it two weeks ago, it’s a - a  _mei long_? It’s a Chinese sleeping dragon.”

Phil leans forward a bit, stretching his neck out so that the dragon comes fully into view. It is large and covers an entire side of his neck, and for a moment Dan thinks it’s a pity that Phil’s pretty, pale skin has been now permanently marked. But then he thinks of the pretty bruises he could leave being on that fucking  _mei long_  and feels a little bit better.

“I didn’t know you wanted a tattoo,” Dan hears himself saying, even though he’d been about to compliment Phil on his choice of design. Turns out his tongue has taken leave from his senses, and Dan doesn’t know how he feels about that.

“It was a spur of the moment thing,” Phil provides, grinning sheepishly and running a finger over the tattoo. “My roommate was going to get one - or, you know, another one - and he asked me if I wanted to come along. And once I was there, god, Dan, the place was intoxicating. It felt like - like the right thing to do, to sit on the stool and pick a design and point to my neck.”

Dan nods, because he thinks he can relate. That’s a little bit like how he feels like whenever he’s around Phil.

“And your roommate?” prompts Dan, eager now to be filled in on everything he’s missed out in Phil’s new life. “What’s he like?”

“He’s nice,” says Phil. “Really - what do you call it, punk?”

“Nah,” Dan snorts, punching Phil’s arm. “That’s you.”

“Really?” Phil blinks at him, then gives a one-shoulder shrug. “Yeah, okay. Maybe.”

Dan laughs, shaking his head. “What are your classes like?” he asks.

Phil’s double-majoring in Linguistics and Media Studies, because he’s very smart and likes to create things. As Phil launches into a brief story about all of his classes, Dan leans back a little bit to watch him. Phil uses his hands when he takes, and once in a while he’ll stop to grin at Dan, that stupid tongue poking out from a stupid gap in his stupid teeth, and he’ll wait for Dan to nod before starting up again. And Dan thinks, not for the first time, that he is so fucking in love with this boy.

That is when, of course, he has to go and fuck it all up.

Phil’s fallen quiet, and it’s probably become closer to midnight because lights have been switched on in the suburbs under the hill, and people have begun streaming out of their houses and into their front porches, talking amiably among themselves. Dan’s watching them with a small amount of interest, knees pulled up to his chest and chin resting on them, when he says softly, “Why’d you stop texting me back?”

Beside him, Phil stills. And he hasn’t said anything yet, but already Dan feels like he’s lost.

“I,” Phil starts. Stops.

“I mean,” Dan tries to continue, and then his voice breaks and his cheeks flush. “You could’ve - “ he tries again. “You could’ve. Called, or something, if texting isn’t your thing.”

When Phil had been here, they’d never texted each other. Phil would walk over to Dan’s house and climb into his bedroom window at odd hours of the night. They’d meet at the beach and wander for hours, always at the same time, always to the same places. Nothing with Phil had ever needed to be scheduled before.

Phil makes a soft sound, and Dan looks at him his eyes are shut tight, his lips tucked into his mouth like he’s biting onto them, and biting down hard.

“Hey,” Dan says, surprised. He reaches out, but doesn’t quite know where to put his hand to he reels it back in again, resting it on his lap and looking down. “Hey, don’t.”

“I wanted to,” Phil rasps, his voice raw and aching. “But I didn’t - I don’t know, Dan. Everytime I picked up the phone I didn’t know what to say. It was like - there was too much, and I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to  _tell_  you about it. I wanted you to be there with me, experiencing it all beside me. I wanted - I missed you so bad.”

The first of the fireworks start when Dan reaches out to cup Phil’s face, holding it firmly even as his fingers tremble. “I missed you too,” he says, leaning forward so that their foreheads rest together, and when Phil exhales heavily his breath tickles Dan’s upper lip. “I missed you so much, Phil, and it was stupid because I’d. We’d only known each other for a month, you know? But you’d given me so,  _so_  much and. And I don’t know.”

When Phil opens his eyes, Dan has to suck in a breath. Phil is so  _close_ , he’s right there, and it could be so easy to just lean forward and connect their lips, to end this word fest, seal it with a kiss. But then Phil says, “I wasn’t supposed to feel this much,” and Dan reels.

“What do you mean?” he demands to know, his voice barely audible over all the fireworks.

Phil just shakes his head, gives him a watery laugh. “It doesn’t matter,” says Phil hollowly, drawing away and pulling out of Dan’s grip. He looks up at the sky and says, “Pretty,” softly, and Dan keeps his eyes on Phil and says, “I know.”

When the fireworks die down and Dan gives an almighty yawn, Phil suggests mildly that perhaps he should drop Dan home. On the way down the hill he drops the bomb.

“I’m on break,” Phil says, keeping his eyes keenly on the ground. “Three weeks for the summer, but I’m heading back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Dan echoes dumbly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t - “

“You were here for a week,” Dan says.

“I know, but I - “

“And you came to see me  _tonight_.”

“Dan - “

They’ve reached Phil’s convertible now, so Dan presses Phil up against the side of his car and kisses him.

Phil tastes exactly like he used to: almonds, deodorant and musk. Memorising that stupid, mesmerizing scent might possibly be the worst thing Dan’s ever done, but it helps now, reassures him that there aren’t that many versions of Phil. There’s really only one, and that’s his Phil, the one who’s leaning into him, moaning into his mouth. Phil is soft but sturdy (that working out theory definitely stands) and when Dan plays with his bottom lip, he gives out that same breathy whimper that would drive Dan up the wall. That still does.

Dan isn’t sure how long they stand there, sweaty in the hot air of the night, hands in each other’s hair as they pull and push and relish. Eventually Phil breaks away and says, “I need to get you home,” and Dan nods, out of breath.

The ride back is silent, but it’s a different kind of silence. When Phil parks in front of Dan’s house, he turns off the engine and leaves the windows pulled up and Dan feels now, for the first time, like he can say it. Nobody else will know, only Phil. And Phil’s the only one that matters.

“I’m in love with you, you know.”

And Dan nearly has a heart attack, because those are his words - his exact words - but they’ve just come out of Phil’s mouth. Dan thinks,  _no fucking way_. Dan thinks,  _it can’t be_. And then he thinks,  _please_.

Phil sucks in a breath, and then continues talking. “I don’t really know when? But it sort of happened, between all the coffee shop trips and the beach adventures and the late-night blow jobs. I kind of fell, and I fell really hard, and I guess that’s why it hurt so much to leave. And when I came back I was so scared you’d hate me for never calling, so I left it for today, but Dan the last week has been torture, I swear. And I’m telling you this now because. Because if you don’t want me, I get it, I really do. And I’ll leave and I won’t text you ever again. But I just. I think you need to know.”

The blood rushing in Dan’s ears makes a sound so loud he’s afraid he’ll miss out on something important, like the  _ha, just kidding, got you!_ that Phil is bound to say any second now. But nothing of that sort happens and the minutes tick on, until Dan unbuckles his seatbelt and moves to climb over Phil, sitting down neatly on his lap with his knees on either side of his hips.

He caresses Phil’s face slowly with his thumbs, coaxing his eyes to open, and when they do, Dan leans down to kiss Phil’s nose softly. Beep boop.

“Tell me,” Dan says. “Tell me what you’ll do if I want you, too.”

“I will call you,” Phil responds immediately. “Every day. Twice a day, if I can manage it. We will skype on the weekends and talk for hours, and it’ll be like I’m here with you. I’ll come down as often as I can. I’d say I’ll think of you all the time but. I already do that.”

Dan shakes his head, his lips threatening to break out into a smile. “S’That a promise?” he wonders out loud, but it doesn’t really matter anyway, because he is so  _gone_  for Phil that he’ll take what he can get. He’ll take it all.

When Phil bids him goodnight, he kisses his knuckles, his cheekbones and his forehead. “I love you,” he whispers into Dan’s hair, and Dan says into Phil’s shoulder, “I love you, too.”

When Phil pulls away, Dan stays at the end of the driveway and waves till his arm tires. Then he runs back into the house and quietly makes his way back to his room, where his phone lies abandoned on his bed. He takes it into his hands, ready to send Phil a text, something stupid and loved up and absolutely pathetic, except he finds a text there waiting for him. A text from none other than Phil. It reads:

_i miss you already. x_

**Author's Note:**

> yo drop me a comment please & thank 
> 
> [my tumblr](http://oopsiwritefanficdonttellmum.tumblr.com)


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